Hyogo wins 18th annual Inter-Prefectural Men’s Ekiden

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The defending champions Hyogo Prefecture won the 18th annual Inter-Prefectural Men’s Ekiden, over seven stages and 48km, in Hiroshima on Sunday (20).

Like their women’s counterpart in Kyoto last week, the teams consist of school, college as well as professional runners as the idea of this ekiden is for young runners to learn from their older team mates.

With cloudy conditions and the temperature hovering at about 10C, Hyogo went into the lead early in the first stage and then stayed in the front through stage two. In the middle of third stage Suguru Osako, of Tokyo, went to the front but Hyogo's Yuhi Akiyama regained the lead barely a kilometre into the fourth stage.

During the fourth, fifth and sixth stage, Hyogo pulled further ahead but then desperately hung on to their lead, after a great run by Tokyo's Yuichiro Ueno on the final stage, to win by five seconds while Tokyo finished as runners up for the second consecutive year.

“Since Tokyo and Aichi were strong favorite, our goal was only top eight finish. Perhaps that was better for us psychologically,” said Koei Adachi, the team leader for Hyogo.

How the race unfolded:

Stage 1: 7km (high school runners)

The pace was quick because Hyogo's Keisuke Nakatani pushed the pace from two kilometres. “I was determined to win the stage, because I did so last year,” said Nakatani.

After stage 1: 1. Hyogo 19:56; 2. Tochigi 19:58; 3. Mie 20:00.

Stage 2: 3km (junior high school runners)

After two kilometres, Hyogo's Chikashi Ikeda, who set the national junior high school record for 1500m and 3000m, started to pull away. By the end of the stage, Ikeda led by 13 seconds. However, well behind the leader, a new stage record of 8:29 was set by Hiroshima's Shiki Shinsako.

Tokyo's Suguru Osako ran brilliantly. Starting fifth, he caught Hyogo's Keisuke Fujii at 5.5km, and then tried to pull away with one kilometre to go. Fujii hung on for around a minute but when Osako surged again with 600 metres to go, he was successful and finished the stage eight seconds ahead of Fujii. “I used a lot of energy catching Fujii, so I rested a bit before I pushed hard with 1km to go,” said Osako.

At 9km into the stage, Tokyo's Yuichiro Ueno was still 47 seconds behind Hyogo stalwart Satoru Kitamura. Uena was still 20 seconds in arrears of the leader with one kilometre to go before digging deep but fell short by five seconds.